


The Tale of the Righteous Priestess and the Ruinous God

by donotspeaktomeofdragonfire



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Ancient God AU, FIRE AND WAR AND DESTRUCTION YES, Gen, I actually wrote something with no shipping are you proud ma, Mythology - Freeform, Old Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donotspeaktomeofdragonfire/pseuds/donotspeaktomeofdragonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the world of popcornflavoredtea's Ancient God AU, starring Xephos as the GOD OF CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION. This is mostly a prequel to her work on the AU, as her focus has been mainly on Xephos' experiences and the world after he -- oops, spoilers!<br/>The style of this work is based on old mythological storytelling, because I always loved that style, and because we figured it fit well here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of the Righteous Priestess and the Ruinous God

**Author's Note:**

  * For [popcornflavoredtea](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=popcornflavoredtea).



> Popcorn: popcornflavoredtea.tumblr.com  
> The Ancient God AU: popcornflavoredtea.tumblr.com/tagged/Ancient-God-AU  
> Me: froggylee.tumblr.com

    In the dark and olden days, some time after the creation of the Universe but quite a long time before the Romans and the Greeks and Jesus and even Adam, there rested on one corner of the world a poor land, always in the shade of the nearby mountain, regardless of the Sun’s hopeful rays. This direful mountain was the earthly home of an old and reckless god, a god who reveled in the cries of the towns’ orphans and the weeping of their widows. Xephos, the God of Chaos and Destruction was a name few dared to speak without cringing, and a god rarely prayed _to_ but rather prayed protection _from_. If one dared to slander or curse him, the sorry offender most often found their world consumed by unholy fire, their offending tongues burnt out of their mouths and their hearts turned to soot and ash inside of them.  
    It is said, that in this land, every sixty years or so, a young inhabitant of the city would be sent to Xephos, to climb the mountain and place themselves at his complete mercy until their death. In his service, they would be his ears, eyes, hands, and feet among the people of the land. This Priestess at the time in which these events unfolded had belonged to him for many years now, since she had become of eligible age. When she left, she had ripped herself away from her family, her sisters and brothers left to care for their aging parents without the aid of the eldest daughter. The smallest ones hadn’t understood, had called out to her with questions she could not answer, and their voices haunted her throughout her years.  
    She had scaled the mountain, rising from the shadow-covered land through my butts, far up into the heavens where few mortals may pass and return to tell the tale. The wind and rain and snow did their best to blow her off the mountain, perhaps to allow her death rather than have her face her fate. Despite their howling, she made it up with only a few stumbles, her cloak wrapped tightly around her.  
    When the howling had turned into a cacophony, unbearable to her human ears, she’d looked up, raised her eyes as much as she could, and saw that she stood at the foot of a grandiose set of steps. She kneeled at the door at the top of the steps, a double set of golden doors forty men high and twenty wide each, her head bowed in reverence. She didn’t know how long she kneeled there, but when her feet began to tingle with numbness and her fingers felt as if they would fall off from the cold, something seemed to speak to her in the storm. She strained, and again, it spoke.  
    “ **Go in,** ” it told her, and in she went.

    That was many years ago -- twenty perhaps. It had become difficult for her to tell the passage of time, living on the top of a mountain with someone who never aged. She had spent most of those twenty years by Xephos’ side, either physically or in spirit, wandering the lands to speak of his glory and perform small acts in his name. She had become a vengeful angel, a death-toll, and at the sight of her the people fled as though she were Xephos himself. Every step she took among them now was pain, and every ounce of pain she brought was reflected back a hundred times on her heavy heart.  
    On the day of which this story begins, she stood at the foot of Xephos’ towering throne with an entirely different purpose in her heart. On this day, she would commit the ultimate betrayal to this tyrant of a god. She would no longer be worthy of the title of Priestess.  
    “Xephos, Lord of Chaos and Destruction --” she began, addressing the giant god before her, but Xephos stopped her mid-sentence with a wave of his hand.  
    “ **No, no, you’ve got to say it like this,** ” he corrected, frowning, then cleared his throat. “ **XEPHOS, LORD OF CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION!** ” he bellowed, his voice reverberating through the Priestess’ bones. “ **I’ve been trying -- twenty years, I’ve been trying to get you to do it like that.** ”  
    She nodded and smiled gently. Despite his casual tone, she knew to remain reverent and cautious. “We have a gift to present to you,” she declared to him.  
    He grinned at her, his pointed teeth like spears stretching from ear-to-ear. “ **What do the people of this land have for XEPHOS, GOD OF CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION? Fire? War?** ”  
    “No, my lord, there are no reports to tell of war yet, but this news is more wondrous still. The people who live in the shadow of this mountain have built something in your rightful honor! Will you come with me, my lord?” She bowed her head. Considering his response, even the smallest child would not wonder that she had turned from his service. If he remained in power, if he was allowed to further spread the eternal night of his mountain, the still-young world would be reduced to a charred crisp within a few generations. Hatred would reign, the right and just upended and turned out, in favour of crowning demons and tyrants.  
    To the Priestess’ deep relief, Xephos stood with no further argument, his starry eyes glowing unnameable colours, and masking any suspicion he may have had -- though, if she was perfectly honest with herself, he was likely far too vain to look for any ulterior motives when presented with something to raise his name.  
    Opening his mouth, Xephos roared once more. “Show me this gift that the people of this land have made in my honor!”

    In a moment, the two of them were whisked away into the world below. This was not sudden or startling, as this had become the mode of travel the Priestess most used on her journeys.  
    “ **Lead me to this gift, Priestess,** ” Xephos commanded as soon as their feet were solidly on the ground. She went obligingly, weaving through the now-empty streets, her shoes thudding dully against the packed dirt streets. Despite only the slight noise, the sounds still echoed hauntingly against the walls of the peoples’ houses. At the sight of the towering god, the poor residents of the land beneath the mountain had fled into their homes, and Xephos could feel their prayers, their prayers of desperation and pleas for mercy, protection against whatever wrath he was bringing down with his sudden appearance in their midst. He smiled once more, deciding along their way to lift his hand and deepen the shadows in every crack along the walls, to cast long creeping patches of darkness in every space between buildings, and as a further gesture, he draped each lantern and candle in little blankets of night.  
    The Priestess stopped only when she was a little way out of the city. Xephos watched her, glancing around him in search of the offering she had promised.  
    “This is where they have built it,” the Priestess explained, gesturing at the earth beneath them. “They carved it out of the heart of the world.” She walked further on and paused in front of a stone door, seemingly carved only out of the rock of the hill it was built into. “My lord, will you follow me? The door is quite small, it is only the size of me,” she asked, presenting the devious trap in the most innocent of voices. She would have prayed to other gods for confidence, or help, but they still stood in the shade of Xephos’ mountain, and while they remained there Xephos was the only ruling god. The Priestess was, for once, on her own.  
    “ **Priestess, Daughter of Chaos,** ” Xephos spoke again in his stone-crumbling voice, “ **I will transform myself to be as you are so that I may look upon this offering.** ” In a moment, he was standing only a few feet taller than the Priestess herself.

    Down they went, deeper into the earth, past worms and roots and ancient things, buried since long before even the oldest gods were created. Deeper still they travelled, past graves and bones and time. Deep into the soul of the land they buried themselves, and the Priestess led them somberly onwards.  
    “Your gift, my lord, that the people have made in your honor, so that you may be praised forevermore,” she finally spoke, bowing and gesturing to the open doors at the end of their path, so that he may enter first and look upon the wonders they had placed inside.  
    Xephos did so, and the moment he stepped through those doors he was struck with awe and wonder, the likes of which he had never experienced in the whole of his worldly existence.  
    The shape of the room seemed to be carved perfectly, with no tool or hand of man. Nary a crack was to be found in the entirety of it. The ceiling arched high above, so high that Xephos could not see it in his human size. With a roar that should have cracked the smooth stone, he raised himself to his full height and stretched further still, so that the tips of his fingers were only brushing across the stone above. Turning around, he examined the rest of the room.  
    Xephos’ starry eyes alighted on the glorious murals spread wide across the walls, demonic imaginings of conquest and fiery armies marching upon the land, of brother pitted against brother in blind hatred. The paints seemed to flow into rivers of blood, into his veins, alighting his very being with desire and possession.  
    The Priestess, dear brave soul, stepped gingerly inside the room and shut the doors behind them both, then gestured to bring Xephos’ attention to what was displayed above the doors, in a place of honor.  
    There, rising in near-true height, a figure of Xephos himself had been painted, and with this new piece, Xephos could see the full picture of the room as it was meant to be: he was sitting atop a throne of skulls, each with jewelled eyes, his head held high and arms outstretched, commanding all that was seen upon the walls. His demeanor was that of a conqueror, and it called out to all the Universe, _look here, see what I have done, see that I am to be feared and fearfully loved, see that I am All and I AM._  
    Xephos was completely entranced by his own image, by the sparkling blue diamonds that rested in his double’s eyes, and, unbeknownst to him, by a deeper magic that was at work within the room, an older magic, a darker magic and one more powerful than he could have hoped to bear. He could not have known what it was, but something groaned and tugged at his being. He turned, ripping his eyes from the glory of the room, and faced the opposite wall, the source of his unexplainable unease.  
    “ **Priestess, what is behind those doors?** ” Straightening himself and squaring his shoulders, he challenged the doors that were set into the rock on the far side of the room, the imposing doors that stood taller than himself at full height, that he could not know what lay behind.  
    “My lord, for all the wonders that we have created in this room here,” the noble Priestess told him, “through those doors lies an ever greater treasure. We who live in the shadow of the mountain, of your Mountain, have spent many a year working here, striving for the perfect honor, the greatest temple, only for you, my lord. Please, enter.”  
    Even had she not told him of all these things, these half-truths, Xephos would still have been drawn to the doors, tugged and shoved and pulled towards them, the handiwork of the ancient and dark spellwork they had placed upon it in the dead of night, the spellwork that had come at the cost of many lives. The Priestess began praying to everything she had ever known, begging and pleading that all their work would not be in vain, that Xephos would be unable to resist the pull. As Xephos placed one hand upon the door, she cried out with joy, and Xephos only had a split second to look back at her, to recognize the tears upon her rosy cheeks, before the doors swung open and he turned back to see the unknowable, unending, impossible void that stretched beyond them. He turned back, reached out, looked upon the pictures and the gems that shone within them, heard the Priestess’ voice, his Priestess’ voice, condemning him for everything he had commanded her to do, condemning him for even having been breathed into the world from the heavens.  
    As far as Xephos and the world knew, gods could not cry, especially not a God of Chaos and Destruction. But as the story goes, as a great and unbearable force grabbed him and dragged him mercilessly into the void, I have been told that a thousand gems scattered across the floor of that deep room, ten lifetimes’ worth of riches, left to be buried with him in that room in the heart of the world.

 

 

                                                                             

 


End file.
